# data[].attributes.body
Icône
shoot or save?
Made with mirth
Avatar de Nathalie Czerny
Nathalie Czerny
 + 1
●
10 jours

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Aylan Kurdi

09/03/2015 par Michel Kichka

L'image d' Aylan Kurdi, ce petit réfugié syrien de 3 ans, retrouvé mort noyé et sans gilet de sauvetage sur la plage de Bodrum en Turquie, est devenue en 24 heures l'emblème de cet afflux migratoire sans précédent que connaît l'Europe. Parce qu'il porte un nom et a un visage il n'est pas une donnée statistique, il est un petit être humain sans défense dont la photo du corps échoué sans vie a ému des millions d'internautes. Il faut avoir un coeur de glace pour ne pas s'émouvoir aux larmes. Sera-t-il le catalyseur d'une politique commune européenne face à ces vagues hors normes de migrants, politique attendue par des millions de réfugiés des villes détruites, bombardées, ravagées de Syrie et d'ailleurs, et souhaitée par Angela Merkel?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
L'image d'Aylan Kurdi, ce petit réfugié syrien de 3 ans, retrouvé mort noyé et sans gilet de sauvetage sur la plage de Bodrum en Turquie, est devenue en 24 heures l'emblème de cet afflux migratoire sans précédent que connaît l'Europe. Parce qu'il porte un nom et a un visage il n'est pas une donnée statistique, il...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
aylan michel kichka cartooning for peace - Google Search

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.entities[].name
Bang Bang Jukebox | Hrithik Roshan & Katrina Kaif | Vishal & Shekhar

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
una de mis mejores peliculas de fotografia, donde narra la historia de un fotografo famoso, (kevin carter) mas conocido por su fotografia el niño y el buitre. espero y les guste.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Posted on in Arts and tagged artist, arts, camera, children, conflict, ethics, journalism, Kevin Carter, news, Osman Sagirli, photography, photojournalism, poverty, Sudan, Syria, war.

The world of fashion and artistic photography are always portrayed as incredibly glamourous. Pre-organised shoots or models dressed in couture to advertise the latest perfume. Photojournalism falls into a slightly different category. Sitting on the boundaries between art and reporting, a photojournalist's job is to depict the events and suffering that words are unable to convey.

But how does a photojournalist disconnect from the suffering they are capturing, without wanting to help those in the picture?

His talent and levels of detachment had been rewarded, while hundreds of Sudanese people starved.

Kevin Carter is one of my favourite photographers. Having discovered his work in a newspaper supplement I read in secondary school, I studied his work in college as I become more and more interested in the medium. The most famous of his works depicted the Sudanese famine in the early 1990's. A painfully thin young girl crouches on the barren ground on her way to a food clinic, whilst a vulture watches from afar.

The reaction to the piece was extreme. A controversial image, many argued that Carter should have run to the child's aid, instead of taking the picture. This reaction only grew when he was awarded a Pulitzer prize for his work. His talent and levels of detachment had been rewarded, while hundreds of Sudanese people starved.

Carter grew up during the Apartheid in South Africa. Surrounded by racial segregation and suffering, he wanted to document the events that occurred around him. As his passion for photojournalism grew, he joined a group of photographers that the press christened the Bang-Bang club - due to their documentation of the violence that they witnessed around them.

Detachment is vital in photojournalism.Regardless of the public's opinion on the medium, there is simply no way a photographer can take these kinds of pictures if they are emotionally involved with the events. The group witnessed hundreds of beatings, murders, and stabbings and continuously had to remain at a distance from what they saw.

Carter was not as detached from the events he saw as he seemed.

Detachment is vital in photojournalism. When Carter took his award winning photograph, he had been working in the Sudan and witnessing the starvation and suffering around him throughout his trip. It is reported that during his time in the country he was chaperoned by a group of soldiers - assigned to him, essentially, to prevent him from interfering. Quite simply, if he had attempted to help the child he photographed crouching in front of the vulture, the soldiers would have intervened.

Sadly, Carter was not as detached from the events he saw as he seemed. Perhaps due to the press's reaction to his work, or due to underline personal reasons, Carter committed suicide in 1994. Filling his car with fumes from its exhaust pipe, he died of carbon monoxide poisoning at the age of 33.

Recently, a similar image has come into the public's attention. Taken in Syria, an image of a child seeming to be surrendering to the photographer has been retweeted countless times, and gone viral around the world. Whilst there was a slight confusion over the origins of the image, and identity of the child, a BBC article entitled The photographer who broke the internet's heart confirmed it had been taken by Turkish photojournalist Osman Sagirli. The child assumed that the camera was a weapon, horrifically demonstrating the fear that has been driven into the people of Syria, since the conflict began.

"The child assumed that the camera was a weapon, horrifically demonstrating the fear that has been driven into the people of Syria, since the conflict began."

I would consider categorising photojournalism to be difficult. Yes it demonstrates the skills and talents of the individual behind the camera lens, but it also shows skill in identifying events that the public will be most interested in seeing. It is also my argument that distancing themselves from the horrors around them is also a skill that a photographer needs to develop - honing it as a talent in its own right, in the same way a painter would learn to demonstrate colour gradients, or a sculptor would learn to manipulate clay.

Far from criticising these artists for not helping those they capture images of, the public should be thanking them. For without them we would have no visual recollection or knowledge of the horrors of war, conflict and suffering.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
by Jess Howard The world of fashion and artistic photography are always portrayed as incredibly glamourous. Pre-organised shoots or models dressed in couture to advertise the latest perfume. Photojournalism falls into a slightly different category. Sitting on the boundaries between art and reporting, a photojournalist's job is to depict the events and suffering that words...

# data[].attributes.body
Documenting Tragedy

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Michael Kamber is a photojournalist who has been working around the world since 1986; he has traveled to Iraq, Afghanistan, Liberia, the Sudan, Haiti, Israel, and many other countries to capture conflict. Kamber has been published in most major newspapers in both the United States and Europe.

Recently, he took the initiative to create an exhibition at the Bronx Documentary Center titled Altered Images, which focuses on exposing documentary photography that has been staged, manipulated, or faked. We spoke to him to learn more about the current state of ethics in photojournalism and where things are headed.

Would you mind telling us a bit about the Altered Images exhibit and what it is that you aimed at capturing?

We researched and put together an exhibition containing the last 150 years of faked, staged, and manipulated photographs starting with the one in Ukraine during the Crimean War, then coming all the way up through the 1900s and present day. In general, we looked at three things: images that were staged and faked for propaganda purposes, photos that were taken out of context and placed with the wrong caption, and then digital and darkroom manipulation where people had gone in and moved things around in the photo.

Do you feel that image altering is getting worse in the age of digital with manipulation tools at our fingertips?

Yes, I definitely think that it is getting worse. As the exhibition shows, this is not something new; it has always gone on. But I think that for a number of reasons it is reaching a critical mass. I think that the photojournalism industry has changed from the industry I grew up in - it doesn't really exist anymore.

Staff jobs and apprenticeships with editors that can teach you the ropes over a period of years - that has all gone out the window. I think those were the ways certain standards and ethics were passed down. That whole system has disintegrated. So, you've got a lot of young photographers who I think are, to no fault of their own, not really trained in photos and ethics and they have the means of production at their fingertips. They have grown up with Photoshop and can change photos at will.

When I was growing up, I didn't know how to change a negative. I took a photo and if I didn't like something in the photo or if it wasn't the photo I wanted, with a different person in it or some object in the photo, I had no ability to change that. If you are a young photographer today and you have something on a screen in front of you, then you can change it very easily. That is a very different situation than what I grew up with.

What would you say to those who would look at a photograph - say the one in Syria where the photographer removed the video camera in the lower left of the image - and says that they are simply cleaning up the image and not changing the meaning?

I think the answer is very simple. If he or she gets to move this, then the next photographer gets to move something else. Once we have established the principle that it is okay for photographers to decide what and what is not important in the photo, and then everything goes out the window. How do you know that the video camera isn't important? Who is to say that a year from now there is not some debate about something that was videotaped in Syria on that day, and we need to know that there was a videographer present? Maybe there is a debate that arises - we just don't know.

We can't be clairvoyant and decide what is important or not for history. Once you establish the principle that photographs can make a judgement about what should and should not be in their photos - you are opening up a pandora's box that is never going to end.

We need to have total confidence that what we are seeing in the photo is what was in front of the photographer's camera. And that is at least the starting point. Sure, the photographer could have moved to the left or the right, and he could of moved his camera higher or down low, and that would have changed the photo, but the fact is that he took a certain photo from a certain point of view, and we need to know what was exactly in that photo when he took it.

Would you consider the problem of image manipulation an issue of ethics?

I think that's the troubling part. Young photographers who frequently have not been given the right training, again to no fault of their own, don't even see it as an ethical issue. The photographers I've talked to, many of them don't even understand it as an ethical issue. They just say, 'I'm trying to make the photo better. I'm trying to take out things that are distracting. What does this have to do with ethics?'

Would you say that there is a complete disconnect for most people between image altering and ethics?

Very much so. I have very sophisticated and educated people - doctors, lawyers, academics - who come in and say 'I didn't know there was any such thing as ethics. I just assumed newspapers changed things all the time.' That's kind of shocking to me.

What do we have to do to reshape the path we are on and restore photojournalism to the way it once was?

I think in particular that a lot of the problems seem to be around these prizes and awards. I think that they really have to lay down the law. I think it needs to be crystal clear what is and what isn't allowed and when they cross the line I think they should be banned. There should be some draconian thing. There are major photographers who have submitted photos to World Press that are demonstrably false, and they were allowed to keep their prizes. You can go on World Press ' site today and see that their photos are up there. These are photos that we know were staged and faked. That's quite an extraordinary thing.

If you saw the Italian photographer, Troilo, his photographs from Belgium, the ' Dark Heart of Europe' (contains nudity) was, after a huge uproar, disqualified by World Press Photo. He was including photos from a town that was not even in the town he was photographing. But he's apparently being vetted in a grand prize festival coming up in Italy for the same body of work.

I don't think we can lay it all at the hand of the contests, but I think especially with freelancers out there destined to make a name, desperate to make a mark, I think they are all desperate to win these contests and awards now. Again, these are not the staff photographers of 15 years ago who had a secure job for life. These are people who are just trying to get their name out. They are desperate to win World Press Photo. They are desperate to win POV. I think the contests are a place we could really focus our efforts and say 'these are the rules, and if you break the rules, there are going to be severe repercussions.'

Do you feel that people are viewing the news itself as a contest? That they are trying to put their photos over the edge and, as a result, are manipulating the truth?

Yes, I think so. I also think that a lot of photographs today are being seen by both photographers and editors as illustrations. For me, ten years ago, to go into the darkroom and create a heavily burned, impressionistic, black and white photo was a huge amount of work.

Today you just hit the filter button on your Instagram, and you've got this wildly impressionistic photograph that is more of an illustration. We need to make it clear. What is an illustration and what is photojournalism? What is an illustration and what is documentary photography? I think that idea is slipping away, and I think that it is more prevalent in Europe where the photographer is an artist and he has his artistic vision. I think that takes us to some very different places.

Let's talk about the famous issue of Time Magazine with OJ Simpson. When we look at the photograph, Time had made Simpson's skin a lot darker. With something like this, is there a finer line? How do we say that an image has to be exposed a certain way?

When we did this exhibition, it was extraordinary how many photographs are routinely used as a starting point for a magazine cover and it is seen as an illustration, so they do whatever they want with the photograph. They get an illustrator to come in and radically change that photo - frequently without consulting the photographer or alerting the readers. Suddenly we have a photo that is on the magazine, such as the OJ Simpson case, which is radically different from what they started with.

The magazine's defense is that 'it's just an illustration - a photo illustration'; this is outrageous. I can send you ten examples of this. The National Review takes a photo of Obama speaking to a crowd and all the signs in the crowd say 'forward' and they change the wording on the signs to say 'abortion.' This is just done routinely now.

Now this problem is not just at the level of the photographer, but also at the level of the editorial staff?

I think some of the worst offenders are editors. Again, Newsweek taking a photo by Balazs Gardi of a child wounded by Americans and printing it as an illustration for an article about children wounded by the Taliban. This kid wasn't wounded by the Taliban; he was wounded by Americans. Their response was 'Well, it's a wounded Afghan kid, who cares?' It matters. It matters who the kid was wounded by, and we are seeing a lot of editors who see photographs as just the raw clay with which they can explore their vision and change in whatever way suits their purposes.

What is your personal drive that keeps ethics in your focus?

I think if you look at great photojournalism, it helped end the war in Vietnam. Great photojournalism helped fuel the civil rights movement and changed laws in this country. Great photojournalism, good solid, honest photojournalism, has been a catalyst for historical and social change around the world. Those photos that I am speaking of were not staged; they were not setup. People believed in those photos. Those photos were a catalyst for social change because people believed what they saw was real.

When we get to the point where 20% of the World Press Photo finalists were disqualified because they are radically changing their photos - and those are just the ones that we caught - people can really no longer believe in photos and when people no longer believe in photos they can no longer make a change in the world. We need good solid, honest photographers.

In regards to anyone interested in Altered Images, despite the physical exhibition being over, can they still visit the collection online - are most of the photos on display?

Most of them are on the website, and we are finding more; we are slowly adding them. There is a good deal of information on there. With the photographs on the website, the good thing is that there are links to any articles about the photos, any videos about the photos, and any debates around the photo.

For anyone who is interested in the Altered Images project, do you plan on releasing a book or any additional work?

We do. We are working on the catalog. We want to have an accompanying catalog for the show. We are trying to pull together the funding now to put that out. It is tough because there are so many photos that have been faked. It is tough to have a discussion of what should be included.
Image credits: Lead image by Ron Terner and modified to fit a 2:3 aspect ratio

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Interview: Michael Kamber on Photojournalism Ethics and the Altering of Images

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Michael Kamber is a photojournalist who has been working around the world since 1986; he has traveled to Iraq, Afghanistan, Liberia, the Sudan, Haiti, Israel, and many other countries to capture conflict. Kamber has been published in most major newspapers in both the United States and Europe.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Ari Shapiro, in Washington, sitting in for Neal Conan. Last night, a man was arraigned and charged with second-degree murder for allegedly pushing someone into the path of an oncoming New York subway train. This hour we'll talk about the photograph that made Ki-Suck Han's death a national topic of debate.

The New York Post published this chilling image on its cover. The photo shows a man in the path of an oncoming train with the headline: "Doomed: Pushed on the Subway Track, This Man is About to Die." The entire horrifying episode has sparked a conversation about how we capture and share images of tragedy.

Photojournalists and editors, we want to hear from you this hour. Tell us about a time you had to make a tough call, whether to share a troubling image. Our phone number is 1-800-989-8255. You can email us at talk@npr.org, and you can also join the conversation at our website. Go to npr.org, and click on TALK OF THE NATION.

Later in this program, Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse on the fiscal cliff. But first the photo everyone's talking about, and we begin with NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik. He's following this story, and joins us from the New York bureau. Hi, David.

DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.

SHAPIRO: Before we get to the ethics of what happened, describe what we know. What are the facts of this story?

FOLKENFLIK: Well the facts are fairly straightforward. There was an altercation, you know, at a subway stop here in Midtown Manhattan. Folks were waiting for the Q Line, saw an altercation between the gentleman you mentioned, Ki-Suck Han, he's 61 years old, and a person later identified by police as Naeem Davis, a 30-year-old man. Some eyewitnesses later described Mr. Han to news outlets as having been a little bit aggressive and contentious.

The person identified by police as Davis pushed the man, and he tumbled into, you know, the tracks themselves. The Q Train was coming. He, as the photograph showed that you described, is literally trying to get himself back up onto the platform and cannot do it. And the train strikes and kills him.

Onlookers, you know, pull him back up afterward. A lot of questions raised as the photograph itself raised about the Post, questions were later raised both about onlookers, could they have done more and also whether the photographer himself should have done more rather than trying to take that picture.

SHAPIRO: Most people first heard about this story when they saw the cover of the New York Post, and there was an immediate outcry, as we said, against the photographer. What have we heard from him, and what has he said about what happened in those moments?

FOLKENFLIK: Well, his name is Umar Abbasi. He's been a photographer I believe on contract with the New York Post. Tabloids tend to have a lot of people on contract and freelancers rather than simply having a stable only because photographs are so important to the visual kind of storytelling in tabloid gossip, celebrity, crime, violence that so much is a staple of what they offer.

He says look, headline in front of me, he writes a little essay in the Post yesterday that says anguished photog, critics are unfair to condemn me. What he said after being criticized, ultimately by people as prominent as Al Roker of "The Today Show," CNN's Anderson Cooper, they said put down the camera, fellow, and go help this guy.

He said I was far too far away to help, myself. He said he took pictures in order to set off the flash to warn and alert the person driving the train to try to get them to put on the emergency brake. He did take 49 pictures, and people took that as evidence somehow that he had a lot of time to spare.

Actually, if you think about the way modern digital cameras work, you know, the camera, if you just hold it down, it's going to take shot after shot after shot after shot. He says I couldn't do anything, I responded as a photographer. There were people far closer than me. None of us reacted in there.

A lot of them, they said, were afraid of the way in which the gentleman who had pushed the victim down onto the tracks, was behaving up there.

SHAPIRO: I understand the photographer has also said he was paid for the photograph by the Post, as photographers are when their images are published. The Post has taken some heat for publishing the photo with this headline, doomed. Tell us about how they've reacted.

FOLKENFLIK: The Post has reacted by publishing day after day after day of front-page stories on this. You know, they are in a sense milking this horrific story, as tabloids are wont to do. It's a grisly, terrible story. The original photograph, if you see it, and we're one of the few news outlets that can talk about it without reproducing it as we're doing so, although obviously on our website we have to make choices ourselves, but the photograph in a sense is - evokes the notion of a snuff film.

I mean, you're seeing a guy moments before he's about to actually be killed, and that's a very rare image to capture. It's visceral and haunting, even though you're not seeing the actual violence occur quite yet. So the Post is taking heat, and the Post is liking the attention.

I mean, they're letting the photographer speak for them, in a sense, and they're letting their front page speak for them by reproducing the story in subsequent days.

SHAPIRO: Are there any hard and fast rules about this kind of situation for photojournalists, for newspapers that may publish those images?

FOLKENFLIK: There aren't hard and fast rules. In talking to journalists and news editors, people who are thinking about this issue and issues like this one, you know, they're trying to say what's the public good weighing what's the private pain that's incurred and also what's the effect on people who are going to see this.

After all, if you're putting this on the front page of the New York Post, you're ensuring that people and schoolchildren of, you know, all the neighborhoods in New York are going to see this on the newsstand. After all, that's how the Post is largely distributed. So you've got to think: Is this going to be too upsetting for the public to handle? Is this going to be too upsetting for the family, which has said publicly now that it is absolutely ravaged and distraught by this image?

Or is there a public good being served? I think it's - there's a public good being served in the notion that you are evoking the horror of this moment, you are making clear that it's - you're not sanitizing what violence is person-on-person. On the other hand, you know, you don't have to see all the grisliness of a murder victim to know that a murder is terrible and horrible.

And, you know, our standards in this country, while not hard and fast, as you say, are a lot less likely to be bloody than if you were to look at newspapers in particularly Latin America or other parts of the world.

SHAPIRO: We're going to hear from experts this hour who hold both views, that it should and that it should not have been published. But David, I want to ask you: Is there any difference when you're talking about what you described as tabloid journalism, something like the New York Post in contrast to the Wall Street Journal or the Financial Times?

FOLKENFLIK: Well, I don't think you'd find too many people at the Wall Street Journal or the Financial Times finding a specific instance of violence to be as interesting, unless it's evoking a greater truth. You know, you could see something that showed the horrors of genocide in the Balkans or Rwanda. Or you could show a dead body or some sort of atrocity being committed as a way of bringing attention of the world on something that they needed to bear witness to.

You know, ordinary crime is not something that you see - the prestige - broadsheet newspapers giving that kind of coverage to, nor typically the more prestigious, you know, broadcast news outlets. A tabloid, you know, local news and violence and crime is the texture or the warp and woof of what it does on a daily basis.

And, you know, for them, the controversy is not something to be avoided but courted. You know, I don't see this as being something where it's a gaffe on their part. I think they thought we have something gripping and visceral that everyone will be talking about it, and we don't care if it's in praise or condemnation, they're all going to want to look at the front page of this paper.

SHAPIRO: That's David Folkenflik, NPR media correspondent, following this story from our bureau in New York. Thanks, David.

FOLKENFLIK: You bet.

SHAPIRO: We're going to a caller now. This is John(ph) in Orlando, Florida. Hi John.

JOHN: Hi.

SHAPIRO: Tell us about your experience.

JOHN: Well, I was a journalist for the Army, and I was in Afghanistan in 2005, and there was a huge battle, and someone essentially fell dead at my feet. And I took a picture because it was literally at my feet. And that picture never made it out. I think every 10 years - if it had gone out, it would have been something that people would have been talking to.

The feet, the boots of a soldier with a dead person between them. Every many years, something happens, this discussion blows up, and we - it's over and over again. And I wouldn't say that the paper is doing a great job because they're reporting this image, but it is something that people have to see because it's what brings up the discussion of humanity that we have.

And taking the photo is not - whether this person should have tried to save that person or not, you know, I think it's a no-brainer. If you can, you try to save someone. But at the same time, I think that's a completely different issue from taking the photo. The photo has to be taken.

SHAPIRO: You know, John, just from the tone of your voice, it sounds as though the memory of this still has an emotional impact on you. What effect did taking this photo have on you as a journalist?

JOHN: Well, the photo is impressed in my mind forever, along with many, you know, thousands of photos, of the tens of thousands of photos that I took. The entire experiences will never go away. So I mean, I feel sorry for the guy who took the picture because literally that image is going to be stained on his corneas forever.

SHAPIRO: John, thanks for your call and for your service.

JOHN: Thanks.

SHAPIRO: So to help us explore some of the ethical questions surrounding this situation, we've asked Kelly McBride to join us from the Poynter Institute for Journalism in St. Petersburg, Florida. She's senior faculty in ethics, reporting and writing. Welcome back to TALK OF THE NATION, Kelly.

KELLY MCBRIDE: Thank you.

SHAPIRO: So you've been following this story in New York with the New York Post. You just heard this caller, John, who had this experience photographing a tragic, traumatic moment in a war zone. What are the ethics surrounding these situations for photojournalists?

MCBRIDE: Well in general, you have the decision of the photojournalist to take the photo. And John is right: If you have an opportunity to save somebody's life, you should, and I haven't heard anyone argue otherwise. And I'm not going to judge this photographer harshly because I don't know how far he was, and he says he was trying to save the guy's life. So I'm not going to judge him.

But the decision to publish a disturbing photo like that is a more complicated decision. And as a publisher, you're asking questions about the journalistic purpose. When you have an image from a war zone, a famous image that we might compare to this image of this man about to die would be the girl stripping off her clothes after she has been covered in napalm in Vietnam, an image like that causes a lot of harm.

It's an invasion of privacy to the people in the photo, and it's hurtful, harmful to the people who view the photo. But it has a broader journalistic purpose. It's meant to reveal something to the audience so that the audience can uphold their Democratic duties.

I'm not sure that this photo in the subway has any broader journalistic purpose. I've heard some vague descriptions of, you know, being a metaphor for the impending death that we all face, but there's no government to hold accountable. There's no systemic corruption. There's no malfeasance that caused this to happen. So there's nothing for us to do as audience members except look at the photo and be shocked.

And for that reason, I think this is much more prurient and voyeuristic than it is journalistic.

SHAPIRO: Hold on a moment, Kelly. We want you to stay with us. We're going to take a short break and come back with an opposing viewpoint. We're talking with Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute, and after a short break, we'll hear from Stephen Mays. He has a different take on the New York Post's decision to run this photo.

Photojournalists and editors, we want to hear from you, as well. Tell us about a time you had to make a tough call about a troubling image. The number is 1-800-989-8255. Or you can email us, talk@npr.org. I'm Ari Shapiro, and this is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SHAPIRO: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Ari Shapiro in Washington. Today we're talking about photojournalism and ethics, the tough calls the photographers and editors have to make about whether to run disturbing images. Of course we're talking about it because of the image that ran on the cover of the New York Post this week: a man on subway tracks moments before an oncoming train ended his life.

Ever since the image hit newsstands and the Web, a debate has raged about whether it should have run. We tried to contact the photo editor at the New York Post, who has not responded to our inquiry. So photojournalists and editors, we want to hear from you. Tell us about a time you've had to make a tough call about whether to run a photo.

Give us a call at 1-800-989-8255. Or email us at talk@npr.org. Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute is still with us. She believes the image should not have been printed. But others maintain the New York Post was right to run it. Stephen Mayes is managing director of VII Photo Agency and former vice president of Getty Images. He joins us from our bureau in New York. Welcome, Stephen.

STEPHEN MAYES: Hello.

SHAPIRO: So make the argument. Why do you believe the Post was right to run this photo?

MAYES: Well, look, I've devoted the large part of my life to publishing pictures which people find difficult, many sorts of pictures that Kelly has described, you know, important issues, policy-changing subjects. And very often, you know, I find resistance. People don't want to publish the picture. And here's what I find difficult about this conversation is that to me the information is gruesome, the story is itself horrific.

And I first came about this when somebody described it to me, and my imagination just went crazy. I felt sick in my stomach. I use the subways, I'm a commuter, and I could see myself in that situation. That to me was the heart of the story. Why, then, do we choose photography as the medium to censor? What is it about the photograph that can't be shown yet can be said in words?

And that's where I find my struggle. And, you know, with regards to is this is - plainly (unintelligible) life-changing circumstance, but whether this is, you know, era-changing image, well, you know, I think there's even a discussion to be had about that. I mean, millions of us use the subway every day. Millions of us have looked over our shoulders as we stand, you know, hearing the train coming on and looking, just wondering who's behind us.

This is a daily reality for many of us, and this story isn't just about one man. It's about many of us. It's awful, it's horrific. The facts of it can't be varnished. But why censor the photograph?

SHAPIRO: So at the end of the day, it sounds to me, Stephen and Kelly, as though you use sort of the same measuring stick, which is, does this have news value, does this have journalism value? But perhaps you just measure this photograph in different ways on that scale. Kelly?

MCBRIDE: That's entirely possible. I tend to think that when something is going to cause harm that those are the moments when, as a journalist, you have to make sure that you have a higher purpose other than just telling a story. And it sounds to me like we may disagree on whether the standard changes when you're about to cause harm.

SHAPIRO: So let's talk about how photographers and editors make this judgment. Stephen, you've had these conversations before. Talk us through how they play out.

MAYES: Well, I think that very often what I find is people are making judgments on taste, and I find that a very difficult subject to venture into because we as picture professionals are looking at images, and we judge ourselves qualified to look at these pictures, and somehow we're not damaged by looking at them, but we're making the decision that other people will be damaged if they look at them, and I find that a very arrogant position.

What is it that makes me impervious to the message of this picture which somehow would affect other people? And I think it's wrong of us to intervene in that way and try and make those judgments for other people, particularly now in this day and age where we are in the Internet age, where the role of that gatekeeper, that patriarchal, I'm going to make this decision for your good about what you're allowed to see, is actually - is fading.

I think it's coming as a somewhat redundant argument. I doubt if many of your listeners have actually seen this in print. I guess most of them have actually seen it online. And therefore the discussion becomes one about vilifying the Post rather than picking up the issues that it raises, and there are issues around public safety, mental health, things that we should be talking about.

Why are we spending this time talking about the Post when they've brought in a serious issue to us, to our attention, for discussion?

SHAPIRO: Well, even before the Post made the decision to publish the photograph, there was the decision to snap the photograph. And I mentioned, Kelly, as I introduced you, that you advise photojournalists on how to make these decisions in difficult situations. What kinds of advice do you offer? What's the guideline?

MCBRIDE: Well, I tell them that if you are in a situation where someone's death is imminent or serious injury is imminent, and you are the most qualified person to help, and you might be the most qualified person because you're the closest person, or you're the only adult, or you speak the proper language in order to intervene, you have a moral, a human moral obligation to put down your camera and help out. And I've never heard anyone disagree with that.

MAYES: And I wouldn't disagree, either.

SHAPIRO: We're going to take another call now from Tony(ph) in Princeton, New Jersey. Hi, Tony, you're on the air.

TONY: Hi, good afternoon.

SHAPIRO: Tell us your story.

TONY: Well, I'm a photojournalist in New Jersey, and, you know, I was really shocked when I saw the cover of the Post yesterday. And, you know, a lot of the comments that your guests are making are very valid. But on a personal level, I am very sensitive about the people that I photograph, and I have deliberately not taken photos while other colleagues around me have because of the sensitive nature of the situation and putting myself in their shoes and not wanting to be photographed if I were in their shoes in that situation. And...

SHAPIRO: Can you give us an example?

TONY: For example there was a local story where a mother's daughter had died very tragically, and I was in a situation where it was a very personal moment where - between myself and the mom, and there were other photographers there. And I decided to step back and not take photos at this one particular time, and other photographers did.

And the long of the short of that story is that later on, that ended up helping me out because the mother came to me and said, you know, I'm glad you didn't take my picture then. I really appreciate it. And it ended up opening up the story for me later on, where I was given access by the family when other photographers weren't.

SHAPIRO: I imagine there must be two conflicting instincts. As a human, watching someone suffer, you don't want to take a photograph. But as a photojournalist, when you're hearing all the cameras click around you, part of you must just want to pull the camera up and take the shot.

TONY: Absolutely, yeah, that's a huge internal conflict. You know, thankfully I don't want to have to deal with it on a great level every day, but, you know, it's something that we all as photographers have to make a personal decision on. But, you know, with this case of the Post, you know, again I can't speak for the photographer, and in many circumstances I agree with, you know, make the picture if you can, and decide whether it's going to be published later on.

But, you know, my other larger issue is the general perception the public has of news photographers, that we're generally lumped into the whole paparazzi umbrella, which is really nothing what we do as photojournalists every day compares to what paparazzi do. And then in the days following Princess Diana's death, you know, I had somebody get in my face and personally accuse me of killing the princess.

And, you know, these kinds of things, as they build up, and, you know, specifically the Post publishing this picture, you know, is adding to that negative public perception that we as photojournalists have, and it makes my job harder every day.

SHAPIRO: Well, thanks for the call, Tony.

TONY: Sure.

SHAPIRO: You know, Stephen, I'm curious, as Tony raises a question of paparazzi, does it matter that the New York Post is a tabloid, and people expect sensationalism from it?

MAYES: Well, I think that it is part of the discussion, and I think that the reason why the Post has come under attack like this is because it's the Post. There's a certain classism I think at work here in the media. But look, we all play our different parts, and I think that, you know, what the Post has done, you could call it sensational. By the way, I find the headline very descriptive. I didn't see any...

SHAPIRO: The headline, doomed.

MAYES: Well, that's a fact, you know, and there were no adjectives or inflammatory adverbs. I mean, it was this man is going to die, he's doomed. And the Post is playing its part. It's putting this on the front page, running it big, as it had a huge impact. We are sitting here talking about it now. And that's their part in the role.

I think it's up to the rest of us to take any meaning out of that and do stuff with it. Here we are actually doing something very useful now, by the way, discussing photography. And I would just say, if I may, that I'm - the encouraging part about this discussion is that it does reassure me that photographs still have power, and those of us in the business, you know, have struggled a lot of times to persuade people that pictures really can tell stories in ways that have greater impact.

And there is no compassion fatigue. People are moved when they see images like this. It does contribute to the telling of the story. And that I find very encouraging.

SHAPIRO: All right, let's take another call. We're going to Boston, where Essdras is on the line. Hi, welcome to the show.

ESSDRAS: Hi, how are you doing? My name is Essdras. I'm a staff photographer for The Boston Globe. Back in 2004, 2005, when the Indonesian tsunami happened, I arrived at the scene nine days after the fact. So a lot of the images that told most of the story had been told. But I have the luxury of actually being judicious on what photos I took and I didn't. At some - this specific day, I came out to a mobile hospital, and I found this kid, and the kid, he was about three years old.

His skin had been completely ripped off because he'd been caught in the churning water, and I looked at this kid, and I'm, like, this is so sad. And I thought to myself: You know, this kid doesn't need this. I don't need to take this photo to tell the story, and I started walking away. And I literally was pushed out of the way by a Japanese photographer who saw me, and he followed my gaze, and he went and he got in the kid's face with a wide angle, and he made this photo.

I just shook my head, pulled out a telephoto, a long lens, and I made the same photo from afar. And at that point, a doctor in the hospital screamed at the both of us and kicked us out of there, which I was very happy about. That was a case where I made the photo, because the photo was going to show up and my bosses are going to say, where is this photo? I didn't want to take it, but I thought I did it in a more respectful way. So I'm not judging the guy who took the photo, but I know, on a daily basis, you have to deal with those situations, if that is your job.

SHAPIRO: Essdras, is there an argument that taking the photo had value in telling those of us who are half a world away what was actually going on there in a stronger way than words would have been able to do?

ESSDRAS: Well, the thing is, had I gotten there two days after it happened or right after it happened, yes. It had all the value in the world. But because it took us so long to get there, it had been nine days after the fact and so many photos have already been shown, that photo, really, to me, was not going to add anything to the impact that the whole story had already caused. The whole world already knew that hundreds of thousands of people had died. I don't think this photo would have made much difference.

And the photo exists and the photo never got published, and I use it sometimes when I teach ethics of journalism to say, you know, you've got to make decisions. And the right decisions are the decisions that you can live with, and that should be your barometer writer.

SHAPIRO: Thanks for the call, Essdras.

ESSDRAS: OK. Bye-bye.

SHAPIRO: And, Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute, I wonder what you make of his story. Is this a common conflict for photojournalists in a crisis zone?

MCBRIDE: Yeah, you know, I find that photojournalists tend to be very, very emotional and gut reactive, that I don't know if it necessarily goes in hand-in-hand with operating with the visual medium. But one of the things that I would tell a photographer like that is your job is very important, and the images that you take are very important. You have the privilege of telling stories to the rest of the world, and the choices that you make of which stories you tell can change the course of history.

So I would tell him when you're faced with a situation like that where you have great, great compassion for the suffering individual and you have the opportunity to tell this person's story, look for alternatives that allow - and he did. He shot with the long lens, rather than getting right into the kid's face. Look for alternatives that can tell the story in a way that don't make the kid seem gruesome or disfigured in a way that's repulsive. Look for ways to exercise your compassion.

And most photographers do that every day with the choices that they make. The more sensitive the story, the more they're looking for different angles, different lenses, different ways to approach the story, so that they can show it and not be that paparazzi, callous person who's just invading someone's privacy in order to make a buck.

SHAPIRO: We're talking about photojournalism and ethics, and you're listening to TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News. We have an email here from Chap(ph) in Charleston, South Carolina, and he writes: As a videographer, I find that whenever I'm filming, people are more likely to do risky things. I've had footage of people right before a watercraft plane crashed because they did a barrel roll in the sky and the wing collapsed. I once filmed somebody jump off a 76-foot cliff on a lake and land wrong, both within the same year. He says it's hard to know how to share these images. One way, it's exciting, and another, it makes me want to quit filming people altogether.

So this is a new wrinkle: the presence of a photographer or a videographer actually altering the action. Kelly?

MCBRIDE: Yeah. That happens all the time, and many photographers - I mean, if you've ever been a photographer at a football game, all you have to do is turn around and point your camera at the crowd to see how you change...

(LAUGHTER)

MCBRIDE: ...the way people behave. So it does happen, and most photographers are very careful to try and minimize that impact, especially when you have people doing audacious things like jumping off of buildings.

SHAPIRO: Stephen Mayes, as a director of a photo agency, you're often involved in these decisions of whether to publish or not. And we've talked about the decision of whether to take the photograph and the decision of whether to publish the photograph. How often is there disagreement between a photographer who says the world needs to see this and an editor who says, no they don't, or vice versa?

MAYES: It's hard to classify this disagreement, but it's very often the case that we submit pictures for publication that never appear. It's very hard, from our position, to know exactly why in every instance. But we put forward pictures which are disturbing. And a large part of what we do is trying to make people look at uncomfortable things that - you know, looking at pictures doesn't always need to be pleasurable or - but it, you know, one does need to learn from them, which we discussed already, and that can be difficult. And sometimes, editors with commercial considerations, frankly, will make decisions that maybe it's easier for their readers and their advertisers not to publish work. And that is a challenge.

SHAPIRO: We have time for one more brief call from Darren in Granite Falls, North Carolina. Hi, Darren. Tell us your story.

DARREN: Yeah. I'm a photojournalist, and I was a staff photographer at the (unintelligible) Daily News about six, seven years ago, and rolled out on a police scanner call to a child that was drowning in a retention pond. I was able to get out there very quickly, while paramedics and firefighters were in the pond trying to rescue the child. And apparently, he had become caught on something under the water. And while I was there shooting with a long lens, the mother of the child had come out, and was being held back and obviously incredibly distraught.

And about 15 minutes later, they were able to get this kid out of the water. I photographed him on the stretcher as they loaded him on the ambulance, photographed the mother. And in the newspaper, we decided to run the photo of the mother being distraught, and not the photo of the child, because at that point, he was already deceased.

SHAPIRO: Was it a difficult decision?

DARREN: Which part? The running of the photo or...

SHAPIRO: The decision to run the photo of the mother and not the photo of the child, or not to run any photo at all.

DARREN: Well, you know, some of those decisions were made over my head by the editors, but I think that running the child's body, that was pretty much a no-brainer. We weren't going to do that.

SHAPIRO: All right. Well, thank...

DARREN: But running the mother - and it got a lot of negative impact, you know, in the community. We had a whole day of letters to the editor just thrashing me, but I believe that drowning is one of the leading causes of deaths among children.

SHAPIRO: So perhaps some journalistic value there. Thanks for the call, Darren. And thanks also to our guests: Stephen Mayes, managing director of the VII Photo Agency and former vice president of Getty Images. He joined us from the New York bureau. And Kelly McBride, senior faculty in ethics, reporting and writing at the Poynter Institute in Saint Petersburg, Florida, she joined us today from a studio there. And thanks to both of you for joining the conversation today.

MCBRIDE: You're welcome.

MAYES: Thank you.

SHAPIRO: When we come back, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse on the fiscal cliff. I'm Ari Shapiro. It's TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News.

Copyright © 2012 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio record.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Documenting Tragedy: The Ethics Of Photojournalism

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When the New York Post published a freelancer's photograph of a man trapped in the path of an oncoming subway train, many photojournalists, editors and consumers decried the decision as unethical. Others argue that the photo was essential to the story.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
What is the Definition of Photojournalism?

Photography is very vaguely defined as the capture of images using a camera, but the construction of the image in front of that camera and the manipulation of that image with photo editing software are both very standard ways of achieving the image you want. There are no practical reasons to avoid this in fields like fine art or advertising photography as the right image is the goal, and the process and characterization of that image are not under trial. This ethical stand-point is not extended all the way to the field of photojournalism, which brings in the standards of journalism into the field of photography. The definition of photojournalism can be debated and can become hazy in different forms that claim the name, but in the more standard definition of photojournalism there are ethical concerns that prohibit altering the image in certain ways.

Photojournalism and Ethics

The ethics in photojournalism really surrounds the general function and definition of photojournalism: which is to capture the real world as it is happening. Though the concept of the real world can be debated, it is up to the photojournalist to capture the image as clearly and honestly as they see it. What this means in a specific sense of ethics in photojournalism is to avoid altering the photo as much as possible.

This form of abstinence starts by non-participation in the image where the photojournalist avoids inspiring or activating the image as much as possible. Though the very presence of the photojournalist will likely change the situation, like draw the attention of the subjects, they should not be actively posing them in any way. Likewise, they should not be an actor in the given situation that they are photographing. For example, if there is a conflict between military forces and protesters and the photographer comes in and aids a protester while taking photos then this could break the code of ethics in photojournalism. This can create a paradox for many photojournalists as they are ethically bound from interfering in a situation, but a more broad sense of ethics may call them to act. If you are photographing a person who is dying of hunger and you give them food it could violate the ethics of your photo, but is humane.

Beyond the active construction in the creation of the image in front of the camera, photo editing in programs like Adobe Photoshop are almost roundly rejected by ethics in photojournalism. This issue can be debated, but standard photo post-production elements such as smoothing out wrinkles on a person's face, enhancing the colors of a location, or changing the contrast could all be considered clear violations of ethics in photojournalism. There have been many major cases in recent years of photojournalists being let go from major publications for the most minor alterations during photo editing. An example of this could be a color alteration to a photo where the sky color could be changed. This change in sky color could indicate or diminish the appearance of pollution, it could change the interpretation of the season, and it could even shift the perspective of the subjects. All of these changes would be the anti-thesis of the structure of the photojournalist project and would violate it on a critical level. Photo editing can be used in certain situations, but it should remain incredibly minor if it wants to fit the strict ethical standards that have been associated with photojournalism. These restrictions will usually never apply to the negotiation of the aperture, ISO, and shutter speed.

Structure

Along with this basic appropriation of ethics comes a structure that is part of the definition of photojournalism. The photos themselves should be captured and distributed in a relatively timely fashion, otherwise their historical context could lead them to fine art categories. Journalism itself is meant to report on current events so that the public has a collective sense of a current narrative, and therefore the photos should be distributed quickly so as to serve this purpose. There is often a narrative structure to the photos, whether or not this appears in a single photo or a series of them. You may want to look towards framing photos that really tell a story or highlight a specific issue so they serve a real purpose.

Photojournalism 101

Whether you are simply looking for the definition of photojournalism, are considering a career in this field, or want to learn tips and techniques on mastering this type of photography, here are several articles that will help you learn what photojournalism is all about.

1. The Definition of Photojournalism: Looking at Ethics in Photojournalism

2. Basic Principles of Photojournalism

3. Photojournalism Careers: Looking at Photojournalism Degree Requirements

4. Photojournalism Photography: Capturing Events (Pre-Shooting)

5. Preparing for Your First Shoot as a Photojournalist

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Ethics in Photojournalism: What is Photojournalism?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Photojournalism is one of the most major areas of professional digital photography, but there are a lot more restrictions applied to it. Here is a look at the definition of photojournalism, what the ethics in photojournalism are, and what the basic structure should be.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Spanish translation: Lea el NPPA código de ética en español

The National Press Photographers Association, a professional society that promotes the highest standards in visual journalism, acknowledges concern for every person's need both to be fully informed about public events and to be recognized as part of the world in which we live.

Visual journalists operate as trustees of the public. Our primary role is to report visually on the significant events and varied viewpoints in our common world. Our primary goal is the faithful and comprehensive depiction of the subject at hand. As visual journalists, we have the responsibility to document society and to preserve its history through images.

Photographic and video images can reveal great truths, expose wrongdoing and neglect, inspire hope and understanding and connect people around the globe through the language of visual understanding. Photographs can also cause great harm if they are callously intrusive or are manipulated.

This code is intended to promote the highest quality in all forms of visual journalism and to strengthen public confidence in the profession. It is also meant to serve as an educational tool both for those who practice and for those who appreciate photojournalism. To that end, The National Press Photographers Association sets forth the following.

Visual journalists and those who manage visual news productions are accountable for upholding the following standards in their daily work:

1. Be accurate and comprehensive in the representation of subjects.

2. Resist being manipulated by staged photo opportunities.

3. Be complete and provide context when photographing or recording subjects. Avoid stereotyping individuals and groups. Recognize and work to avoid presenting one's own biases in the work.

4. Treat all subjects with respect and dignity. Give special consideration to vulnerable subjects and compassion to victims of crime or tragedy. Intrude on private moments of grief only when the public has an overriding and justifiable need to see.

5. While photographing subjects do not intentionally contribute to, alter, or seek to alter or influence events.

6. Editing should maintain the integrity of the photographic images' content and context. Do not manipulate images or add or alter sound in any way that can mislead viewers or misrepresent subjects.

7. Do not pay sources or subjects or reward them materially for information or participation.

8. Do not accept gifts, favors, or compensation from those who might seek to influence coverage.

9. Do not intentionally sabotage the efforts of other journalists.

10. Do not engage in harassing behavior of colleagues, subordinates or subjects and maintain the highest standards of behavior in all professional interactions.

Ideally, visual journalists should:

1. Strive to ensure that the public's business is conducted in public. Defend the rights of access for all journalists.

2. Think proactively, as a student of psychology, sociology, politics and art to develop a unique vision and presentation. Work with a voracious appetite for current events and contemporary visual media.

3. Strive for total and unrestricted access to subjects, recommend alternatives to shallow or rushed opportunities, seek a diversity of viewpoints, and work to show unpopular or unnoticed points of view.

4. Avoid political, civic and business involvements or other employment that compromise or give the appearance of compromising one's own journalistic independence.

5. Strive to be unobtrusive and humble in dealing with subjects.

6. Respect the integrity of the photographic moment.

7. Strive by example and influence to maintain the spirit and high standards expressed in this code. When confronted with situations in which the proper action is not clear, seek the counsel of those who exhibit the highest standards of the profession. Visual journalists should continuously study their craft and the ethics that guide it.

Membership Payment

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Spanish translation: Lea el NPPA código de ética en español The National Press Photographers Association, a professional society that promotes the highest standards in visual journalism, acknowledges concern for every person's need both to be fully informed about public events and to be recognized as part of the world in which we live.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
During the Crimean War, the ILN pioneered the birth of early photojournalism by printing pictures of the war that had been taken by Roger Fenton. Fenton was the first official war photographer and his work included documenting the effects of the war on the troops, panoramas of the landscapes where the battles took place, model representations of the action, and portraits of commanders, which laid the groundwork for modern photojournalism.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Kevin Carter took the picture above of the three AWB members being shot during their abortive invasion of Bophuthatswana just before the South African election. It was a picture that made nearly every front page in the world, the one real photograph of the whole campaign.

Carter ran out of film halfway through the incident, every photographer's nightmare, but still got enough pictures to shock the world. It will probably win the news category of the World Press Photographic Competition to be judged later this year. Unfortunately Carter will not be there to collect his prize. Late on Wednesday night, he killed himself on the outskirts of Johannesburg. The horrors he had witnessed over the years had finally caught up with him. In his line of work, it was often hard to look, let alone photograph.

Carter was only 33, a gaunt, tense, passionate man. Like so many committed photojournalists, for him the picture is the only important thing. He was a second generation Irishman who thrived on the dramatic stories that South Africa, a country of such extremes, has thrown up over the last few decades. After freelancing for most of the international photo agencies, he had finally landed a contract with the Paris-based Sygma organisation and was thought to have finally settled and to be getting to grips with his turbulent life.

Despite being frequently arrested for infringements of the draconian South African prohibitions on reporting, he was always drawn irresistibly to the heart of the conflict. His tumultuous emotional life brought passion to his work but drove him to extremes of elation and depression.

He often said that if he hadn't been a photographer he would have liked to have been a racing driver. He liked living close to the edge.

Starting off as a sports photographer in 1983, he had also been a broadcaster and the photo editor of the Daily Mail in Johannesburg during its short life. What has shocked his family and friends is that he has just had such a successful year. He had won a Pulitzer Prize for his famous photograph of a starving baby being stalked by a vulture in the Sudan. He was also awarded the American Magazine Picture of the Year for the same shot, no mean achievement for a 'foreigner'.

Carter's Pulitzer Prize winning photograph of a vulture watching a starving child in Sudan, 1993. Photograph: Kevin Carter/Corbis Sygma Photograph: MEGAN PATRICIA CARTER TRUST/ CARTER KEVIN/CORBIS SYGMA

Along with all the good news was some bad. His best friend, Ken Osterbroek, was killed beside him while covering a gun battle in the Thokoza township outside Johannesburg. His long-standing relationship had also broken up. He leaves behind a six-year-old daughter.

Jimmy Carter, Kevin's father, told the South African Press Association on Thursday that his son always carried around the horror of the work he did. In the end it was too much.

Kevin Carter, born September 13 1960; died July 27 1994

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Photojournalist Kevin Carter dies - obituary: from the archive, 30 July 1994

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Kevin Carter took the picture above of the three AWB members being shot during their abortive invasion of Bophuthatswana just before the South African election. It was a picture that made nearly every front page in the world, the one real photograph of the whole campaign.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
See the heartbreaking Kevin Carter photos, including that of the vulture and the starving child, that explain why he killed himself at age 33.
Warning: Some photos in this article are graphic.
When this photograph capturing the suffering of the Sudanese famine was published in the New York Times on March 26, 1993, the reader reaction was intense and not all positive. Some people said that Kevin Carter, the photojournalist who took this photo, was inhumane, that he should have dropped his camera to run to the little girl's aid. The controversy only grew when, a few months later, he won the Pulitzer Prize for the photo. By the end of July, 1994, he was dead.

Emotional detachment allowed Carter and other photojournalists to witness countless tragedies and continue the job. The world's intense reactions to the vulture photo appeared to be punishment for this necessary trait. Later, it became painfully clear that he hadn't been detached at all. He had been deeply, fatally affected by the horrors he had witnessed.

Carter grew up in South Africa during apartheid. He became a photojournalist because he felt he needed to document the sickening treatment not only of blacks by whites, but between black ethnic groups as well, like those between Xhosas and Zulus.

Joining ranks with only a few other photojournalists, Carter would step right into the action to get the best shot. A South African newspaper nicknamed the group the Bang-Bang Club. At that time, photographers used the term "bang-bang" to refer to the act of going out to the South African townships to cover the extreme violence happening there.

In a few short years, he saw countless murders from beatings, stabbings, gunshots, and necklacing, a barbaric practice in which a tire filled with oil is placed around the victim's neck and lit on fire.

Carter took a special assignment in Sudan, where he shot the famous vulture photo. He spent a few days touring villages full of starving people. All the while, he was surrounded by armed Sudanese soldiers who were there to keep him from interfering. The photos below are evidence that even if he decided to help the little girl, the soldiers wouldn't have allowed it. The first was shot by Carter himself.

This is a photo of Carter that includes a few of the soldiers in the frame.

After receiving a number of phone calls and letters from readers who wanted to know what happened to the little girl, the New York Times took a rare step and published an editor's note describing what they knew of the situation. "The photographer reports that she recovered enough to resume her trek after the vulture was chased away. It is not known whether she reached the [feeding] center."

Most of us have trouble comprehending how Kevin Carter and the rest of the Bang-Bang Club did this kind of work day after day. But it turns out that it took its toll on them, and in Carter's case, fatally so. Carter's daily ritual included cocaine and other drug use, which would help him cope with his occupation's horrors. He often confided in his friend Judith Matloff, a war correspondent.

She said he would "talk about the guilt of the people he couldn't save because he photographed them as they were being killed." It was beginning to trigger a spiral into depression. Another friend, Reedwaan Vally, says, "You could see it happening. You could see Kevin sink into a dark fugue."

And then his best friend and fellow Bang-Bang Club member, Ken Oosterbroek, was shot and killed while on location. Carter felt it should have been him, but he wasn't there with the group that day because he was being interviewed about winning the Pulitzer. That same month, Nelson Mandela became president of South Africa.

Kevin Carter had focused his life on exposing the evils of apartheid and now-in a way-it was over. He didn't know what to do with his life. On top of that, he felt a need to live up to the Pulitzer he'd won. Soon after, in the fog of his depression, he made a terrible mistake.

On assignment for Time magazine, he traveled to Mozambique. On the return flight, he left all his film-about 16 rolls he had shot there-on the plane. It was never recovered. For Carter, this was the last straw. Less than a week later, he was dead. He drove to a park, ran a hose from the exhaust pipe into his car, and died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Yes, winning the Pulitzer Prize put pressure on him, but it didn't lead directly to his death. Rather, it only added to the pile of stress and guilt he had accumulated while documenting some of the most gruesome corners of the world. But thanks to his brain-searingly memorable photo, the famine in Sudan became internationally known. Carter left an indelible mark on the planet's consciousness.

For more on Kevin Carter, we suggest the film The Bang Bang Club, which chronociles the lives of the members of the Bang Bang club. And for more on photojournalism, head over to our gallery of the most influential photos in history.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Warning: Some photos in this article are graphic. When this photograph capturing the suffering of the Sudanese famine was published in the New York Times on March 26, 1993, the reader reaction was intense and not all positive.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Start studying shoot or save?. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools.